Survival of the Nicest: How Altruism Made Us Human and Why It Pays to Get Along

By Stefan Klein

Award-winning, international bestselling science writer Stefan Klein explores the benefits of altruism on humanity in Survival of the Nicest.

The phrase “survival of the fittest” conjures an image of the most cutthroat individuals rising to the top. But Stefan Klein, author of The Science of Happiness, makes the startling assertion that altruism is the key to lasting personal and societal success. In fact, altruism defines us: Natural selection favored those early humans who cooperated in groups, and with survival more assured, our altruistic ancestors were free to devote brainpower to developing intelligence, language, and culture—our very humanity.

Klein’s groundbreaking findings lead him to a vexing question: If we’re really hard-wired to act for one another’s benefit, why aren’t we all getting along? He believes we’ve learned to mistrust our instincts because success is so often attributed to selfish ambition, and with an extraordinary array of material—current research on genetics and the brain, economics, social psychology, behavioral and anthropological experiments, history, and modern culture—he makes the case that generosity for its own sake remains the best way to thrive.

“Stefan Klein, an enticing storyteller, marshals the evidence for the value of altruism—not only to one’s family but, much more interestingly, to one’s self and one’s tribe. Altruism is truly contagious!” —Roald Hoffman, Nobel Laureate

“A scholarly tour de force about why generosity makes good sense, Survival of the Nicest is also compulsively readable. Klein argues convincingly that helping others is one of the best things we can do for ourselves.” —Elizabeth Svoboda, author of What Makes a Hero?: The Surprising Science of Selflessness

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jan 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781615191819

Stefan Klein

Stefan Klein, PhD, has studied physics and analytical philosophy, and holds a doctorate in biophysics. After several years as an academic researcher, he turned to writing about science for a general audience. From 1996 to 1999, he was an editor at Der Spiegel, Germany’s leading news magazine, and in 1998 he won the prestigious Georg von Holtzbrinck Prize for Science Journalism. Today, Klein is recognised as one of Europe’s most influential science writers and journalists. His interviews with the world’s leading scientists are a regular feature in Germany’s Zeit magazine. His books, which have been translated into more than 25 languages, include the number one international bestseller The Science of Happiness, The Secret Pulse of Time, and Leonardo’s Legacy. A frequent speaker and university guest lecturer, he lives with his family in Berlin.

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PRAISE FOR

Survival of the Nicest

This wonderful book could be read as a scientific explanation for a moral imperative to be kind to others. But it is so much more! Stefan Klein, an enticing storyteller, marshals the evidence for the value of altruism—not only to one’s family but, much more interestingly, to one’s self and one’s tribe. Altruism is truly contagious!

—Roald Hoffmann, Nobel Laureate, poet, and Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters Emeritus, Cornell University

"A scholarly tour de force about why generosity makes good sense, Survival of the Nicest is also compulsively readable. Klein argues convincingly that helping others is one of the best things we can do for ourselves."

—Elizabeth Svoboda, author of What Makes a Hero?: The Surprising Science of Selflessness

"A thought-provoking and comprehensive review of the research on altruism, Survival of the Nicest validates humanistic principles and has far-reaching implications for today’s world—especially for US politics and culture. An inspiration!"

—Rebecca Hale, president, American Humanist Association, and co-owner of EvolveFISH.com

An important contribution to the field of altruism and altruistic behavior and to a better and nicer world. I highly recommend this book.

—Samuel P. Oliner, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Humboldt State University, and founder and director, The Altruistic Personality and Prosocial Behavior Institute

"In Survival of the Nicest, Stefan Klein poses three questions central to social science and ethics: (1) How is unselfishness possible? (2) What moves us to help others? And (3) why are some people more helpful than others? His wide-ranging answers to these questions suggest that altruism is born into us and that selflessness actually both makes us happy and will transform the world."

—Kristen Renwick Monroe, Chancellor’s Professor, University of California, Irvine, and author of The Heart of Altruism

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ALSO BY STEFAN KLEIN

Leonardo’s Legacy: How Da Vinci Reimagined the World

The Secret Pulse of Time: Making Sense of Life’s Scarcest Commodity

The Science of Happiness: How Our Brains Make Us Happy—and What We Can Do to Get Happier

Survival of the Nicest

How Altruism Made Us Human and Why It Pays to Get Along

STEFAN KLEIN

TRANSLATED BY DAVID DOLLENMAYER

justcolophon

NEW YORK

Survival of the Nicest: How Altruism Made Us Human and Why It Pays to Get Along

Copyright © Stefan Klein, 2010, 2014

Translation © David Dollenmayer, 2014

The Mask of Evil, originally published in German as Die Maske des Bösen.

Copyright 1943 by Bertolt-Brecht-Erben / Suhrkamp Verlag, from Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation. Translation for this edition by David Dollenmayer.

Illustrations courtesy of Karen Giangreco, after Hermann Hülsenberg, Berlin.

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no portion of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Originally published in 2010 in German, in slightly different form, by S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main.

The Experiment, LLC

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The Experiment’s books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk for premiums and sales promotions as well as for fundraising or educational use. For details, contact us at [e-mail].

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and The Experiment was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been capitalized.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Klein, Stefan, 1965-

[Sinn des Gebens. English]

Survival of the nicest : how altruism made us human and why it pays to get along / Stefan Klein ;

translated by David Dollenmayer.

pages cm

Translation of: Der Sinn des Gebens : warum Selbstlosigkeit in der Evolution siegt und wir mit Egoismus nicht weiterkommen.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61519-090-4 (cloth) -- ISBN 978-1-61519-181-9 (ebook)

1. Altruism. 2. Cooperation. 3. Evolutionary psychology. I. Title.

BF637.H4K57 2014

155.7--dc23

2013024044

ISBN 978-1-61519-090-4

Ebook ISBN 978-1-61519-181-9

Cover design by Alison Forner

Cover image and image on pages 1 and 93 © Rossella Apostoli | Alamy and Sabri Deniz Kizil | Shutterstock

Text design by Pauline Neuwirth, Neuwirth & Associates, Inc.

Distributed by Workman Publishing Company, Inc.

Distributed simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen and Son Ltd.

First printing January 2014

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Elias

Contents

Introduction

PART I: YOU AND I

CHAPTER 1: The Unexplained Friendliness of the World

CHAPTER 2: Give and Take

CHAPTER 3: Building Trust

CHAPTER 4: Feelings Without Borders

CHAPTER 5: There Is Only One Love

PART II: ALL OF US

CHAPTER 6: Humans Share, Animals Don’t

CHAPTER 7: It’s the Principle of the Thing

CHAPTER 8: Us Against Them

CHAPTER 9: The Evil in Goodness

CHAPTER 10: The Golden Rule

CHAPTER 11: The Triumph of Selflessness

EPILOGUE: The Joy of Giving

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Introduction

SOME POEMS ARE LIKE OLD FRIENDS. COMPANIONS through the years, they keep us fascinated even when we don’t entirely understand them. That’s what the following lines were like for me:

On my wall hangs a Japanese woodcut

Mask of an evil demon, lacquered in gold

With empathy I see

The swollen veins on its brow, suggesting

How stressful it is to be angry.

I was seventeen when I read Bertolt Brecht’s The Mask of Evil for the first time. Like so many young adults, I was angry at the world and longed for a better one. Of course I understood the poem’s literal meaning; from my own experience I well knew the strength required to quarrel and the energy wasted in being angry! Worse than the unpleasant feeling itself is that it separates you from other people. Fury is a prison. Each object of our anger is one less person we can join forces with.

But Brecht’s word for angry, böse, designates more than just a feeling. It’s a moral judgment as well, for it also means evil. This is almost certainly what Brecht had in mind when he entitled his poem Die Maske des Bösen. He wrote it in 1942, when the Nazis’ conquest of Europe was at its height and Hitler’s troops were spreading terror from Norway to North Africa, from the Crimea to the Atlantic. But the angry young man I was when I first encountered his poem found this reading of the poem extremely irritating. How was it possible that people who exploited, injured, and killed others for their own profit could suffer from that behavior? Do Himmler and Hitler in the end deserve our pity?

Much later I understood that you could turn this idea around. If we remain free of malice and show ourselves to be fair and generous, it’s possible that we do so not just out of fear of punishment or because it’s been hammered into us by our upbringing. Humaneness in our dealings with others could perhaps also benefit us by raising our own sense of well-being. The ancient question of whether to worry about the happiness of others or only about your own would then automatically be answered: Both should concern you, because one can’t exist without the other.

That thought was the germ of the present book. It sets out to contradict all the admonitions to proper behavior as well as the centuries-old philosophical principles that tell us we must resist our sweet, egocentric inclinations because that is what the bitter pill of moral duty requires. If our own well-being is so closely bound up with that of others, that would explain why so many people who chase after their own private happiness fail to find it: Perhaps these seekers of happiness have chosen the wrong goals.

More than twenty-five hundred years ago, Aristotle was already postulating that a happy life kept the welfare of others in view. But the philosopher had no way to prove his speculation, which is another reason why the idea took hold that moral action can only occur at the price of self-denial. But today we have empirical research that confirms Aristotle’s conjecture. Humans who act for the benefit of others are as a rule more content and often more healthy and successful than contemporaries who think only of their own welfare. One thing I know, Albert Schweitzer once confessed, the only ones among you who will be truly happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.¹ In that spirit, this book is a continuation of my earlier work The Science of Happiness.²

Do altruists really get through life better? Everyday common sense rebels against the notion. If you give something away, you have less for yourself, while people who use their strength or spend money to achieve their own goals have an advantage—at first glance, anyway. A look at the natural world seems to urge us to hold on to what we have, for all animals, including humans, are competing for scarce resources. Those who have, survive; those who don’t, perish.

But I intend to show that everyday common sense is mistaken. Our life together follows much more complicated rules than the law of the jungle. The following pages will explain some of the principles that actually govern our success or failure. A central discovery is that egocentrics do better only in the short term, but in the long run, it is mostly people who act for the welfare of others who get ahead. Of course mostly doesn’t mean always, and we will need to discuss when the one strategy or the other is called for.

If people who help others are more successful, evolution ought to favor such behavior. And this introduces a fascinating hypothesis: Might it be innate for us to care for others? Is there a gene for altruism?

The fact that the world is teeming with egocentrics is not an argument against the possibility of such a gene. Because of course, people are not programmed solely as selfless beings. It’s even possible that our predisposition to look first to our own advantage is strongest. That would explain why mere exhortations and resolutions to be a better person are so ineffective. But the question is not whether a certain measure of egocentrism is unavoidably part of being human. Instead, it’s a question of whether we possess other and less well-known innate impulses.

Humans are more conflicted in their motives than any other creature. What’s more, we possess the unique freedom to act against our instincts. The spectrum of applications for our innate talents is enormous. For example, evolution constructed us as runners; that’s why every healthy person is capable of running a marathon after the necessary training. But many of us use our cars even for the shortest errands and allow our leg muscles to atrophy. In the same way, we can cultivate or neglect our predisposition to altruism.

Nature, however, has a clever way to get us to do what she wants—she seduces us with good feeling. Sex is exciting and pleasurable because it serves reproduction. Our sensations of pleasure while eating, which are more effective than many would wish, aim to store up a layer of fat against lean times. In a very similar way, nature rewards us for fairness and helpfulness; it feels good to be generous. Brain research in fact shows that altruism activates the same synapses as eating a chocolate bar or having sex.

One is tempted to paraphrase Brecht: How sad it is to be egocentric—sad and dangerous as well. Not dangerous for one’s fellow humans, since at least in developed societies, unbridled egocentrism is kept in check by laws and courts. But who is going to protect the egocentrics from themselves? Serious depression is on a frighteningly rapid rise in most countries, including Germany, where I live. Within a single year, the risk of young people becoming clinically depressed has more than tripled. And according to the World Health Organization, in another ten years, depression will be the most prevalent disease among women and second only to cardiovascular diseases among men. Many experts explain these frightening statistics by pointing to the dissolution of the traditional bonds among families, friends, and colleagues, which results in societies in which only the individual counts. What is certain is that a commitment to others can prevent morbid melancholy.³

Then what keeps us from caring more for others, if only for our own good? Whoever tries it soon realizes how often we second-guess our own wish to be generous. Although we may frequently feel an impulse to do something for others, we often suppress it. For altruism almost always seems riskier than acting exclusively for our own advantage.

For one thing, there is the fear of making ourselves look ridiculous. Generosity has a strange reputation in our society. We praise selfless human beings in public but remain cynical in private. We reserve our admiration for those who seem cool and strong-willed. Empathy, on the other hand, is considered a sign of weakness. The good judgment of those who occasionally put their own interests second is called into question; all too often one hears the word do-gooder.

And so we are hopelessly ambivalent in the matter of selflessness. We want to believe in it but can’t, and even if we could, we wouldn’t admit it. But one thought seems not to occur to anyone—that someone’s willing commitment to others could be a sign of strength.

Even deeper than the fear of derision is the completely rational fear of being exploited. For as long as people strive for their own advantage, some will take advantage of the goodwill of others. That has been the tragedy of every revolution begun by idealists.

And so this book will speak of giving and taking, of trust and betrayal, empathy and ruthlessness, love and hate. But the question will not be whether humans are good or bad. The greatest philosophers have already puzzled long and hard about that. What they have written sometimes sounds like a discussion about whether motion pictures as a whole are entertaining or disturbing—it depends, of course, on what movie you see. Nor will this book be about how we should behave. There are already plenty of convincing systems of moral philosophy, and the only question is why we so seldom follow them.

What I will try to explain instead is under what conditions humans are fair and generous—and when they are unscrupulous and egocentric. We must differentiate three questions. First, how is unselfishness possible at all? Second, what moves us to do things for others? And finally, why are some people so much more helpful than others?

The first section of this book will focus on the most clear-cut but by no means simplest form of living together: you and I. Our propensity to share will be explored, but also our propensity to cheat. For although cooperative action pays off, so does cheating, at least in the short term. But if the generous person who attributes good motives to others and is forgiving usually does better in the long run, how do we decide when we should be trusting and when it would be better to hold back? The demands such a decision places on our reason can be too great to sort out. The empathic system often comes to reason’s assistance, for it functions quite differently from the usual strategic thinking. Whenever we encounter others in joy or pain, we mirror their feelings in our own head. As if the border between you and me were dissolved, the two brains then resonate together. Similar mechanisms assure that trust and mutual understanding occur.

The empathic system has an extraordinary number of facets. Contrary to what is often asserted, empathy alone makes us neither generous nor ready to help. Active help for others requires that we can feel what moves another person. And finally, neuroscientists have recently succeeded in providing impressive visual images of how friendship and love originate in our heads.

The focus of the second part of the book will be the community, beginning with a journey into the distant past: How did our ancestors learn to share with one another? This is still one of the greatest puzzles of evolutionary theory. Often enough, humans have been criticized as the cruelest of all creatures. But in fact, we are uniquely magnanimous. The most recent research shows that no other animal voluntarily hands over anything to another member of its species except for giving food to its own children. But all over the world, humans see to their nourishment collectively, and even little girls and boys spontaneously give presents to each other. There is much evidence that our ancestors first had to become the friendliest apes before they got the chance to become the smartest apes as well. We owe our intelligence to our willingness to give.

But we don’t give indiscriminately. One of the strongest and most vitally important of all our needs is our desire for fairness. A community that does not ensure fairness among its members will fail sooner or later. Justice makes altruism possible, but the hunger for justice also brings with it envy and the desire for revenge. And these are not even the darkest aspects of selflessness; every group sticks together best when it is in competition with other groups. That’s why exclusion and hatred of the others are the dark sisters of altruism. Thus humans owe their propensities to take care of others not only to their most noble but also to some of their ugliest characteristics. In this regard, modern research confirms a relationship portrayed in the myths of all ages, from the fallen angel Lucifer to Darth Vader: the figure of light transformed into a dark tyrant.

Can we live out altruism’s good sides while avoiding the bad? The future of humankind depends largely on the answer to that question. As long as corporations, peoples, and nations pursue their own interests at the expense of the welfare of all, it will hardly be possible to protect the bases for life on our planet.

The history of humankind began with an altruistic revolution—our ancestors started to care for their fellows. Only together did they stand a chance in a world where food was growing scarce because of climate change. Today we find ourselves at a similar threshold: The challenge is to learn cooperation on a much larger scale. It is time for a second altruistic revolution.

There is good reason to be optimistic. Through digital networks, easy travel, and global trade, far-flung regions of the world are drawing closer together and cultures are merging at a breathtaking pace. In this book, I would like to show how this network of connections also shifts the things that drive our behavior. It costs us less and less to be selfless, while egocentrism grows more and more risky.

The future belongs to the altruists. We are born with the predispositions necessary to maintain ourselves in the world. But while we are familiar with the rationally justified pursuit of our own advantage, we are still uncertain about the impulses that lead us to seek our own happiness in the happiness of others. This book is an invitation to explore the friendly side of ourselves.

PART I

YOU AND I

evolution

CHAPTER 1

The Unexplained Friendliness of the World

I have received in a Manchester Newspaper a rather good squib, showing that I have proved might is right, & therefore that Napoleon is right & every cheating Tradesman is also right.

CHARLES DARWIN ¹

WESLEY AUTREY WAS WAITING FOR THE SUBWAY in New York City with his two little daughters when the young man next to him suddenly began to shake, went into convulsions, fell on his back, and began to wave his arms and legs like an overturned beetle. There were perhaps a hundred people on the crowded platform, but most of them looked the other way. Besides Autrey, only two women rushed over to help, but Autrey was faster. With great presence of mind he asked for a ballpoint pen and jammed it between the young man’s teeth so he couldn’t bite his tongue during the epileptic seizure. After a short time, the convulsions lessened and stopped, the young man got up, and Autrey thought he would be able to continue on his way.

A rumble and the glare of a headlight announced the arrival of the train. At that moment, the epileptic began to stagger again. He stumbled to the edge of the platform, lost his balance, and fell onto the tracks. Autrey asked one of the two women to look after his daughters and jumped down onto the track bed. The train was already rolling into the station, leaving Autrey not even a fraction of a second to think. He grabbed the fallen man and tried to heave him onto the platform, but the man was too heavy. So Autrey pulled him down between the rails and threw himself on top of him. The epileptic struggled, but Autrey pushed him down with all his might. When something cold touched his forehead, Autrey pressed his head into the other man’s shoulder. Only two fingers of space separated his head from the train’s undercarriage.

Five cars rolled over him. Then the train came to a halt and Autrey could hear his daughters screaming. When rescue workers finally freed the two men from beneath the train, there was a smear of grease on Autrey’s cap. The paramedics discovered only a few bruises on the epileptic. Autrey himself refused medical attention. In his opinion, he hadn’t done anything special even though he knew he had risked his life. I saw the man and he needed help . . . I just felt that I had to do something.²

If you imagine Autrey as a taciturn and straitlaced fighter for justice and decency—a western hero in the mold of Gary Cooper—you would be mistaken. And he is nothing like the cliché of the pale martyrs eager to make a show of their readiness to sacrifice themselves for others. Wesley Autrey has an athletic build, and if you met him in his Harlem neighborhood, with his warm-up suit and a baseball cap turned backward, you might mistake him for a rapper. Only a few gray hairs in his beard hinted at his age of fifty-one.

His actions at the 137th Street stop on that day, January 2, 2007, made him a national hero. He was invited to the White House and interviewed on talk shows, where he spoke with such animated and articulate ease that he seemed used to such attention. In reality, he earned his living as a foreman on construction sites and had earlier worked three years as a Postal Clerk 3rd Class in the United States Navy.³ But if anyone was awkward in his interviews, it was prominent interviewers like David Letterman, who made lame jokes to distract attention from the fact that he couldn’t match the eloquence of his guest. Autrey proved to be a much cooler guy.

The media and politicians celebrated him as an example, and when Autrey now entered the station at 137th Street, people constantly wanted to touch him as if to assure themselves that he really was a flesh-and-blood human being.

But no one seemed to notice how disturbing Autrey’s heroic deed actually was. What brings a father to risk his life for a stranger in the presence of his two children, aged four and six? How can a person decide in the space of a few seconds to risk his own life to save another?

The Hero Next Door

Millions of TV viewers may have admired Autrey, but what he did represented a real challenge to science. According to traditional scientific explanations, the events beneath 137th Street should not have taken place. The last few decades of research in behavioral science have produced an image of humans as deeply selfish beings. Biologists have viewed us as programmed for maximal reproductive success. Evolutionary psychologists say we are hardwired to seek status. And most economists (probably the most influential of all social scientists) understand human activity as a search for affluence and comfort. All the disciplines have been unanimous in their assumption that everyone is looking out for number one and altruism is an illusion.

But researchers today clearly recognize the difficulties raised by such a conclusion. After all, both men and other animals live and work together in peace. The fish called the bluestreak cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus) swims into the mouths of potential predators, like groupers and moray eels, which could swallow it in an instant. Instead, these predators allow it to stay and eat the parasites that have collected there.

Ants, bees, wasps, and termites live in colonies of millions of individuals, proving that cooperation in large groups can be spectacularly successful.⁴ For how seemingly insignificant each individual insect is, their communities are all the more impressive. It is estimated that in the tropics, termites alone constitute half the animal biomass; that is, these social insects taken together weigh as much as all the other animals inhabiting tropical Africa, South Asia, and Central and South America. Not even the spread of our own species has reached such proportions. The weight of more than seven billion human beings in the world is equal only to the weight of all other vertebrates combined. Yet Homo sapiens rules the entire planet and has formed globe-spanning organizations.

All of this would be incomprehensible if individuals had only their own interests in view. And so behavioral scientists worked for decades to explain how communities are possible if every action must have personal advantage as its reward.

Yet how could they possibly explain the fact that again and again, people like Wesley Autrey selflessly come to the aid of others, even at the risk of their own lives? Heroes may be few and far between, but can we simply dismiss them as exceptions?

After all, tens of thousands of people risked their lives to save Jews from the death camps during the Second World War. And a great number of my fellow citizens are willing to suffer pain for others: More than three million Germans have registered to donate bone marrow for leukemia patients unknown to them. In the United States, there are popular websites

Reviews for Survival of the Nicest

[liscarey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Experiment, ISBN 9781615190904, January 2014

"If you want to be egoist, at least be a smart egoist, and share."

So says science journalist Stefan Klein, in his TEDx talk on this book. Why? Isn't it smarter to look out for our own self-interest, put our own needs first, compete ruthlessly for the greatest advantage for yourself and, by extension, your offspring? Don't altruists give away their advantages to others, and make their altruist genes less successful?

Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is no. Klein gathers together the evidence from history, biology, anthropology, psychology, economics: Those who share, who have a strong sense of fairness, justice, and compassion, are overall happier and more successful in the long run. Social groups in which fairness and generosity are valued and widely practiced are more successful than groups which are more "everyone for themselves."

Why? Humans aren't faster or stronger than the species we competed with in our early evolution. Chimps are much stronger than we are. Individually, we're largely defenseless against lions and tigers and bears--not to mention rhinos and crocodiles. The idea of one human being or a single family group bringing down a mammoth is laughable. We're smarter, but individually, that only takes us so far.

Humans survived and thrived by learning to cooperate and share, in more complex ways and across larger and larger groups, than any other species. That's our special edge--what makes us "fit" in evolutionary terms. (Yes, social insects live and cooperate in very large groups by numbers of individuals--but they are all very closely related to each other--mother/daughters/sisters.)

And the more interconnected we are, the more we value and practice fairness, generosity, and justice, not just towards those we know but toward total strangers on the other side of the globe, people whom we'll never meet.

Klein lays out the evidence clearly, readably and persuasively. Read this, and you'll feel better about humanity and yourself--and possibly make decisions that make you happier in life, and feel less pressure to do the "smart" thing against your inclination to do the right thing.

Highly recommended.

I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

[dono421846 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Having read several of the recent books on this topic, I was expecting a rehash of the standard literature. This author, however, puts a distinct spin on those findings, making his book unexpectedly engaging and challenging. For example, he criticizes those who believe that reciprocal altruism has parallels among the higher primates. He also squarely emphasizes the role of trust in developing fair economies. On top of that, the text itself is accessible and at times even entertaining. Well worth the read.